What a labour.
They put the gel in at 11am and it took about 15 minutes for the contractions to start but when they came they were every 2 minutes and they stayed that way all the way throughout the labour. I could breath through them fine as long as I kept relaxed. My mum was there with me as she was to be my birthing partner. An hour after the gel was put in I was put on the CTG machine and the midwife was surprised by the frequency of the contractions. I was a little worried as baby's heartrate seemed to drop a lot at each contraction but it recovered well after so it did not seem to be a problem. After the trace was done we pottered around for a bit just reading and talking and the contractions got stronger.
My IPs arrived at around 1.30pm and we went and got lunch at the hospital cafe at about 2ish. By this stage I had to stop walking through some of the stronger contractions but as long as I kept focused I was okay. My IPs asked when I thought the baby would be born and I said I thought it would be the early hours of the morning. I had a sandwich and an apple before we headed back to the ward. IF went to take the bags to the hotel and said he would be back later. My mum, IM and I went back to my room and I decided I needed to lie down and I used a few visualisation techniques to get through the pain. Every time I had a contraction I would imagine a large daisy with it's petals closed, each slow breath I took allowed one petal to open and I counted them as they opened, each contraction had about 15-25 petals and each one took about 3 seconds to open. The visualisation really helped and I think I will take a proper hypnobirthing course before I have another baby.
The contractions soon started to feel quite painful though so I went into the toilet, I know it is daft now but I did not want my mum and IM to see that I was in pain as I felt like a real wimp to be cracking up that early on. I tried to check my cervix and felt the waters bulging, I did not feel any more as I did not want to break them. After a while I needed to walk and I felt strangely like pushing so I went to the day room with my mum and had two pretty strong contractions while there. We came back to the room and started to lose it a bit in there. My IM said something that for some reason annoyed me and rather than snap at her I hit the wall. It was at that point I had the realisation that I could not do it - I needed the epidural and I really felt I had let myself down.
My mum got a midwife to come and check me to see if I was far enough along for pain relief. The midwife came in and asked about the pains and said she thought they were just pains from the gel but checked me anyway (my mum was with me but IM was outside the room). When she checked they found I was 8cm and rapidly getting to 9. Chaos from that point on, my mum told IM to phone IF as things were happening. I was taken down to delivery suite on my bed while trying not to push. While we were in the lift my waters went and it was really hard not to push. We got to a room in delivery suite and I had to move from one bed to another (arghhh). Within a couple of minutes of getting onto the new bed baby's head was out (boy did that hurt) and with the next contraction he was all out. He came out with his hand on his head (which is why it hurt so much I guess) and he took a minute to start breathing but he was fine.
We were having cord blood collected so that was being done while a midwife and IM saw to the little man. My IF arrived about 5 mins after baby came but I don't think he was too disappointed to have missed it as it was not long afterwards that he arrived. My IM was in tears and I think she was very shocked by the speed of things. Baby boy arrived at 3.55pm on Friday 7th September 2001 and he weighed 8lb2oz. The official length of labour was 19mins!
Unfortunately taking cord blood means that they can't give the drug to help with the placenta until they have as much blood as they can get and by that time I had lost a lot of blood and I was still bleeding after they gave it. I was given another stronger drug but that did not stop it either so they put a drip up to help. An hour or so after delivery the Dr came in and had to manually remove some clots so I got my first taste of gas and air (weird stuff). After he had done that I got up and walked around and the bleeding slowed down. I was starving hungry by that point but I could not eat anything as they wanted me to be prepared to go to theatre in case the bleeding did not slow enough. I am pleased to say that I did not need to go to theatre in the end though. I was offered a blood transfusion but I declined it, I am a bit nervous about them. I also managed to damage my back/hip at some point so now I have to hobble around but hopefully that will resolve itself.
My IPs are delighted with their son and they got to take him home at about 8.30pm that day. The staff were great and treated us all really well, a lot of the paperwork was more difficult but they did not moan at all and were very sensitive about everything. I had to stay overnight for observation but I stayed in a private room which made it easier. My mum came up to the room with me to help me settle in and the midwife I had seen for all my appointments came up to see me. The midwife was saying that she could not believe it had happened, this was the first surrogacy she had been part of and she was surprised how smoothly it had gone. After she had left my mum gave me a ring that said 'you are special' it meant a lot to me as I knew she was not keen on me doing this in the first place. I did not sleep very well as my mind just kept going over the events of the day, during and after the delivery there was too much happening for me to enjoy it but in my bed that night I could marvel at it all.
I have been very lucky, my husband has been the most wonderful supportive man - I could not have asked for more from him. Despite initial reservations my family have also been very supportive and I hope they now understand why I did it. Over all I would say it was a very worthwhile experience, the feelings I have from knowing that I have helped bring so much joy to a family are undescribable. I hope to have another child of my own next but after that I would love to do another surrogacy. I am planning to wait a bit between pregnancies though, I do feel my body needs some recovery time and my hubby and son deserve some time and attention.
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